Azerbaijan, Baku, Sept. 16 / Trend E.Ismayilov /
By the end of the season gas pumping into Azerbaijani underground storage facilities will exceed 1.8 billion cubic meters, compared to 1.4 billion cubic meters in the same period of 2008, Akbar Hajiyev, head of Azerigas (managed by SOCAR). The pumped gas will be used in autumn-winter period of 2009-2010.
According to Hajiyev, the gas pumping season will end by late September.
"The gas pumping season will complete by late September. The volume of fuel pumped into storage facilities, will exceed 1.8 billion cubic meters. We plan to increase pumping in the future," Hajiyev said.
At present, SOCAR is conducting work under the first phase, which includes well repairs, renewing infrastructure and constructing new pipelines to increase the active capacity of the Garadagh (with 500 million cu. m active capacity) and Kalmaz (with 1.1-1.2 million cu. m active capacity) gas storage units. The Garadag gas storage unit will be reconstructed in two phases. The first phase involves increasing its active volume to 1.4 billion cubic meters compared to the current 500 million cubic meters. The second phase of the gas-storage expansion is planned to increase the active volume to 2.3 billion cubic meters.
According to Abdullayev, it will be possible to pump 3 billion cubic meters of gas into the underground storage facilities in Azerbaijan soon, but after the promising third phase this number could be raised to 5 billion cubic meters. This will enable the improvement of the gas supply to Azerbaijan's domestic market and significantly expand the country's export opportunities, Abdullayev said.
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